"I love you Jesus Christ."

I faced the shit-stained

vision of God,

and trembled with fear.

The protagonist

was wrought with

a picture of Jazz,

and sex, and lies,

and the cool perspective

of a man

apart from reality,

making his own decisions.

Isn’t that right, Jesus?

Isn’t that right?

I wept out the

Cardinal Sin of

a virtuous pipe organ

and let is spill

its blood,

oh so gently.

Those bastards

never saw it coming:

“Someone’s got to

be wrong” they shouted.

Neon sign

apple bottom burst

from the dark specter

of an obtuse society,

renewed from everlasting

grace.

Damned if I know

how it got there.

Damned if I know

that you care.

They feed him

lies,

and yet

I must stand

agape with

him.

Where did the ironclad

laws of my forefathers go?

Dressed up.

Laid nicely before

a generation

that took what it ordered

signed the check,

signed the tabletops,

with the burning desire

to be right.

Fucked up junkies.

Scratching the spot

of the needle.

Don’t you follow the ten?

1. Clean thy needle.

T.V.--shit.

Numbskulls at the office

preparing a fresh batch

of delusions

and escapism.

Paper cup

“Throw the trash

away Amigo!”

He shouted

shooting the Taco Stand.

And where did we escape to?

The unknown desert

of the internet.

The last shoddy

empire of

porn.

Sex-cam photoshoped

ipods, drumrooollllll

tetris.

Dream a dream Jesus,

because nowdays

you might just

strum a

guitar--

Hippie fuck.

And I can’t sit still.

On a plane,

motherfucker.

So I

just move

my

pen.

So I just move

my pen.

I Could Have Made It Better

Look at the wind
the flower,
the debris
And take in the
sound of
rustling oak leaves
and the arrogance
of dissonant cigarette trees
And realize the past
we could have had.

And remember the way
you cocked your hip
and spat and lied
and dived and dipped
and swore sweet blasphemies
off your lips
rolling around in an
angry-shit-fit
that skewered me
from your grace?

But that was okay
all right
and fine,
because sometimes
we screamed
and hollered
and climbed
all in search of
what we called
the divine,

And still we fell too fast

And still we fell too fast

And still we fell too fast

To feel the heat trapped in your hair
to search the stars with a caressing air
and tip the tables without a care

And I don’t know
I don’t know why

I don’t know
I don’t know why

We faltered
broke,
slipped
and cracked

and looked outside
and wept
black
white
gray
and old

so we watched
the movie slowly
unfold
and grow
underneath
my skin

And days went by
and then later weeks
and still the air was
warm and sweet

And I filled my thoughts
with dreams for you

And I filled my thoughts of
dreams of you

And I filled my thoughts of
dreams without you

And still,
we persisted.

And when
we finally blundered
to the end
when we cast our stones
and left our sin
I tasted only the bitterness
of your kiss.
And felt
the way
you felt.

A Deer In December

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed in seaweed red and brown
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
-T. S. Eliot

Edward was in the backseat, looking at the semi-trucks as they blasted past their red sedan on the highway. His father and mother were in the front, talking softly. They thought Edward was asleep. The truck headlights blurred together as they flew across the dirty asphalt in the night. Edward listened.
“Well, he can’t do much thats certain.”
“Eric, he tries.”
“ You’re right. It’s just, I wish he did something. Like a sport. Hey, we should see if he wants to play baseball.”
“You know he hates sports. Remember when we tried to get him to play soccer?
“Well, the boy needs something to do.”
Edward raised his head slightly so that he could look at the stars as they blurred together with the headlights. The window was getting a little cold, he had a sweater that he could put on the glass, but he didn’t want to betray his consciousness. His father continued in a sordid tone: “ I mean Marcie, he stays in his room all day, looking out the window. He needs something, even if he just reads comic books.” At this Edward’s mother shook her head slightly, letting her soft curls bounce between her shoulders.
“Well, maybe he’ll find something interesting this weekend.” They were on the way to Green Bay Wisconsin. Edward doubted that anything interesting ever occurred in Wisconsin, but he didn’t voice his opinion when his parents told him they were going. Edward was seven. A fine age to be, and he thought so. Dad was wrong, he did things. Mom was wrong too, he was interested. He liked staring out the window, watching the world. He liked school, the windows were bigger there. Towering glossy portals they allowed his opaque reflection an escape outside of the classroom. Some days his reflection would play on the playground, other days it would simply sit in the bushes, chatting with the birds. The whole time he could learn while he watched himself, in many ways-Edward thought-he was an amazing boy. Still, Edward remained silent and watched the trucks.
Marcie looked back at her son, and saw the pale visage of a skinny blonde seven year old boy, his head resting in the window, breathing rhythmically, as though he were asleep:
“Maybe he’ll be an artist. Wouldn’t that be nice, Eric?”
“Anythings better than nothing.”
“Yes, I suppose it is.”
Edward closed his eyes. What do you see when you close your eyes, Edward wondered? Black?
Or was it nothing? If it was nothing then what’s wrong with being nothing? He could always think better when he closed his eyes. And if nothing helps you think, well then maybe nothing is better than school. If he was nothing, then maybe he should teach. Edward imagined himself at the front of a classroom with a hundred students.
“Now.” He said. “All of you close your eyes.” They did, all one hundred of them. They sat and closed their eyes. “ What do you see?” Edward asked. None of them spoke. That was OK, Edward knew that it was beyond them. “Do you see red?” He asked.
“No.” they said, puzzled.
“Do you see black?”.
“YES” they answered.
“Wrong.” Edward. “You see nothing.”
“Nothing?”
“Yes.”
“Of course.”
Then they started to think. But Edward knew. Edward knew that it was still beyond them. So the next day, when they sat down, he shut the shades, he turned off the lights, and he blinded every one of them. They screamed, and they yelled horrible profanities, and they tried to find the door but they couldn’t, so they screamed at Edward: “Why? Why did you blind us?”
“Because that was the only way that you could see.”
“Kill him.” They screamed, and the mass of students closed in on Edward. They grabbed their books, their pencils, their calculators, and flung them in the direction of his voice. Then Edward saw their horrible screaming, blinded, disfigured faces slowly close in on him. “But I taught you” Edward said. “Now you can see.” And their hands punched forward, and their legs kicked forward and they enclosed Edward, and then he woke up.
“Edward, we're here.”
He looked out the window, it was snowing. His families cabin was terrifyingly dark, and the snow that swept down from the hill it sat upon made a low whistling noise that penetrated the car and settled into Edward’s ear. They got out of the car. Edward watched his parents unpack. They shuffled around the trunk, randomly pulling out pieces of luggage. They were clumsy, and awkward, leaving a disheveled path of dirty snow and disoriented suitcases under their feet. Edward thought that they looked like his students; clawing viscously at their teacher. Edward shuddered, and his mother saw him. “ Eric, hurry up! Edward’s getting cold.”
“Of course my Dear, almost done.” Edward’s father slammed the trunk and they picked up their luggage and headed to the cabin. His father pulled out a jingled mix of keys, and Edward thought about how the blind would hear him. His father unlocked the door, and they entered the cabin. In Edward’s mind, the cabin was broken up into two big pieces, and five little ones. The top and bottom floors were the big pieces, they divided the living from the sleeping. The bottom floor had two smaller pieces. The first piece, which Edward and his parents had just walked into, was a living space. This was the largest of the five pieces, and the most barren. Two recliners and a small sofa stood to Edward’s left, in front of the furniture was a destitute fireplace that was cracked and smoldered. In front of Edward was a vast space that enshrouded the small oasis of comfort, making the outside of it look bleak and dark. It made Edward feel like a coward.
They went through the first piece and Edward clung to his parents side; then he remembered their awkward clawing, and walked slightly behind them. His father dumped their luggage by the kitchen door, the second piece of the cabin, and flipped the lights on. The kitchen was small, but also sparse. On the right side of the room was a stove and oven, in the middle a small table, and on the window a dirty green curtain.
“Eric, why don’t you go get Edward into his PJ’s while I fix up some hot coca”
“All right.” Edward’s father took his sons suitcase and started walking to the staircase on the right side of the first piece. Edward followed. Upstairs, Edward was guided to the bathroom first (the third piece) then to his room (the fourth piece) Edward’s father went to his parents room (the fifth piece) and laid their luggage on the floor. Soon, Edward’s Pajama’s were on (only his mother called them PJ’s) and he was downstairs sipping coca. An hour later he was in bed asleep.
The blind didn’t come back, but Edward was still a teacher, standing in front of a giant black board. On it, he drew his parents, and he drew a truck, and star, and a cup of hot coca. The black board was huge, so he drew a sun, and some clouds, and a happy face, and a sad face, and a face that was somewhere between the two. Then Edward took an eraser, and started slowly wiping the faces away. He gently wiped off the clouds, and the sun and the coca, and the truck; and then he got to his parents and, carefully, wonderfully, he erased their eyes. And then he erased his own.
The next morning Edward sat at the breakfast table eating his eggs. His father came down and also sat, waiting for his meal, sipping his coffee. Edward’s mother hurriedly opened a package of bacon, and slung the fatty red strips onto the frying pan. The grizzled fat simmered loudly, filling the silence of the room with odd pops, and snaps. Edward’s father spoke:
“You know Marcie, I’ve just got an idea.”
“What’s that honey?” She could not hear him over the bacon.
“ I said, I’ve got an idea.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, I was thinking that perhaps today Edward and I could go hunting.” Hunting, Edward thought. To take somethings life, to steal somethings sight, to give them nothingness, what an awful way to teach.
“I don’t know dear, do you think Edward would like it?”
“ Well, Edward, what do you think?” Edward was silent for a time. He sat up on his seat and neatly cropped his eggs into a small mound.
“Dear, I don’t think he wants to. Besides, isn’t it out of season?”
“Just ending, I think. We probably wouldn’t see anything anyway. Edward, do you want to go?” Edward was sickened, a little, but he also held a morbid fascination in his mind. He looked at his eggs, and his bacon, and realized that he had already hunted in the grocery store.
He spoke: “Yes, lets go.” His father smiled. A brief charming flash of his coffee stained teeth. “Excellent, I’ll get the gun ready.” His father left the table as his mother finished the bacon, and placed it neatly in the center of the table.
“Edward, you don’t have to go.” He looked at his mother. He knew she was right, that he didn’t have to go, but he felt obliged; especially after the conversation he overheard while looking at the trucks.
“ I want to.” His mother smiled, lifted her towel from her waist, and rung it forcefully over the sink. Edward watched as the water was violently squeezed from the cloth, cleansing it of its imperfections.

His father had the gun. He held it firmly. Edward followed him. They looked at the bleak sky left from the first snow storm. They looked at the dead woods, freshly buried. Edward was breathing hard as they reached the edge of the woods, he wanted to hold the gun. He wanted to feel the polished wood. He wanted to lift the barrel, take aim, and shoot; just to prove that the gun was perfect.
They reached the woods, and started hiking through the dead bramble and fresh snow. Edward looked at the back of his father’s coat. He saw the plaid pattern. The red. The black. The fuzz sticking out of the fleece. They reached a clearing. And there it was.
“Edward! Look!” His father said in a hurried whisper. Edward looked at it. Saw the camouflage. The brown. The black. The fuzz, slicked down on its sides. It was beautiful, picking its way through the snow. His father raised the gun. Edward looked at its eyes. They were big, and black.
Black.
There was nothing in its eyes. Not like his fathers. His fathers were crisp, and blue, and matched his dirty blonde hair. There was something in his eyes. It had nothing. Big, bulbous nothing. His father took aim. Edward still had something. He closed his eyes. Felt the nothing. He felt it. Felt it feel him. Felt their nothing, together. Two nothings. His was only temporary.
“Plug your ears.”
He didn’t. Heard the crack. The nothing was gone.

They ate some of the deer for dinner. Edward’s father smiled the whole time. Edward stared at his plate. He ate it. Or. At least. He tried. He closed his eyes and ate.
“...and then we saw the deer. It was pretty special. Did you have fun Edward?”
“...yeah. It was fun.”
“Well, good. Maybe we’ll go again tomorrow.” Edward’s father smiled contently, and left the table: “I’m going to get some more.” Edward watched him fork the deer onto his plate. He watched the way the translucent brown meat juice pooled around the curves of the cheap plastic. He looked down at his own food, and saw the fat gently swirling in the greasy liquid. He felt sick, and left the table.
That night Edward saw: Brown blind deer. Sitting in his classroom. They were all identical. Each one wore a blue suit with a white shirt and red tie. When Edward looked straight down a row of deer, their antlers lined up perfectly. Each deer blinked simultaneously. Perfectly synchronized, they all stared at Edward in the front of the class. Edward turned, and saw his parents outside the classroom, pounding on the windows, begging him to teach them. He could not. So he taught the deer. He drew trucks on the chalkboard. He drew their lights. He told the deer: “Look out, these lights will not stop for you.”
“But,” they said, “we cannot see them.”
“What?”
“We are blind.”
 “Not blind, nothing.” Edward said.
“But, how can we see the lights?” Edward looked at his parents clawing at the window. He took their eyes. “Here.” Edward said. “Now you can see in nothing.” And then the glass broke, and he could hear the screams, he could here the profanities of the blind outside. The lights in the room exploded, and showered scalding sparks on the upright deer. Then the trucks emerged from the chalkboard, and ran over the deer. Their bodies flew around the room carrying a fierce inertia, the deer smashed into the walls, into the desks, into the chalkboard. Edward grabbed an eraser from the chalkboard and tried to erase the trucks, but he was not fast enough. By the time that he had erased the trucks, every deer had been hit. He looked at them. Looked at their dirty, brown, black, bloodied, fur and they spoke: “Edward, there is nothing to see in nothing.”

He heard pounding on his door, and he saw smoke trailing out gently from the space between the floor and the bottom of the door. It looked peaceful, as though it meant to be there.
“Edward!” He closed his eyes.
The smoke got in.
He threw his blanket over his head
“Edward! Open the door!”
He thought: The smoke can sneak through my blanket, and through my eyelids.
“Edward! Hurry!”
The smoke can go into the nothing.
What else can do that?
The pounding on his door increased, he tried to get up, couldn’t, looked at his desk table, looked at the airplane over the bed, took a sip of water, closed his eyes again. Felt the smoke, heard the pounding, smelled the burning deer fat.
The door broke.
His parents tumbled into his room.
His father picked up his table, and flung it through his window.
They jumped out.
The stove had caught on fire, from the deer fat, and now the house was covered in flames, that were spreading quickly; beginning to eat the forest. The house was crumbling, tilting listlessly, dying in the fire. Edward looked at his mother, coughing, weeping, searching wearily, trying to comfort him. His father lay on the ground, bent over on his knees, coughing from the smoke. Edward thought: They must learn. Then he took his parents hands, and lead the weary, the bloodied , and the blind; away from the fire, and towards the car.

Thirteen ways of looking at St. Paul

Thirteen ways to look at St. Paul

I
Twenty snowy street lamps
Had only to make
the glistening shadow more impervious.

II
We could only watch
the way that ice melts
when there is salt on it.

III
She pulled the pages out of the--
Autumn winds.
And sm-iled
Pl-a-ease
Smile with her.

IV
She was spinning.
In the winter
in the spring
in the cold
all alone.

V
First.
We laughed and smiled, as a man and a woman.
Then.
We looked at the sun

VI
Did you see,
the way
ice cream,
drips into her lap?

VII
Wat-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch
him.
Try to play
piano.

VIII
It is dark.
And we are driving.

IX
The wind
that blows the leaves
is blowing
through their hair.

X
The sages
realized their prophecies.
The children
licked their pop-sickles.
And we
could only sit in each others rooms,
could only sit in each others minds,
could only go to the same theater,
could only eat at the same restaurant,
and could only journey
to our final fulfillment.

XI
I
CEcold
asleep, but not
breathing, from
the functi, functi-, functions
of our lungs.
Warmth of
the rugggggggggg of the rain-ne-ne-ne-ne-ne.
spread the
ow
!
l- f -er
!
s
only to die
and
s
p
r
o
u
t
again
in a new
location.

XII
I live in a bubble
of glass and water.

XIII
Some days
we looked at the river.
Some days
we watched the traffic.
Some days
we played in buildings.
Some days
we shined a light.
Some days
we drew further into the cave.
And some days, we watched
as the life we worked so hard
to create, vanished like the
snow from the streets in spring.

Explain me, Emily.

“There is a sort of beauty in the chaos. Don’t you think so, Sarah?”
Emily wiped her nose with the fresh linen run out by a frantic young waiter who wasn’t used to catering to young women, so he carried his shoulders too high, and too tight, and then his arms started to hurt, so he shuffled his feet (to compensate for a lack of upper body mobility) and this caused the soup that he was carrying to slosh around in its fine china bowl, and the sloshing let the now free soup crawl up her chin onto her nose, so the new, young, shuffling waiter had to bring fresh linen to Emily, and, my God, she was a fan of determinism.
“Yes, I suppose there is.” Sarah tapped her cigarette lightly, brushing the ashes off of the table. She spoke again: “But somehow I always lose sight of the beauty, and become enthralled by the mistakes.”
“Mistakes?”
“Yes.”
Emily held her breath, hoping for further explanation, but none came. To end Sarah’s thought she sipped her soup, and blew out exhaustively—to push the cigarette smoke away.
“Like what?” She asked, after wiping her mouth.
“Oh, I don’t know.” Sarah thought for a moment, letting the silence of the conversation cling to the air so that neither her nor Emily could escape its brooding passion. ‘Take the waiter, for instance.” She continued.
“What about him?”
“Well I was here last week, staring in through the window, and I saw him slip and crash a bus load of dishes into that wall.”
“So?”
“Well, that was a mistake.”
Emily coolly raised her glass, being careful to avoid the lemon slice, and gently coaxed a piece of ice into her mouth. “There are many mistakes in the world, Sarah.”
“Yes, but this one is important.”
A curious eyebrow raised from behind Sarah’s smoke bequeathed Emily’s response:
“Important?”
“I wouldn’t have chosen this restaurant if he hadn’t crashed.”
“Now, Sarah, what is the importance of that?”
Sarah leaned back gracefully, emerging out of the clouds of smoke that surrounded their table, into the rest of the restaurant—leaving the bubble of their conversation. She lifted her hair from the back of her neck lightly bouncing her dark curls so that they fell slightly farther down her back. She re-entered the bubble: “ Well, Emily, what if that waiter makes another mistake. Like spilling soup on my dress”—it was a nice dress, a day dreaming flowery affair that clung to her hips and thighs—“and then he would apologize profusely and we would fall in love.”
“I don’t know, Sarah. Maybe we should find a new restaurant—check please.”
The waiter rushed over, check in hand.
“Everything all right today?”
“Yes, quite fine thank you. You can expect a large tip.”
“Glad to hear it, here you go.” He dropped the check on the table leaving a resounding thud, and an indifferent customer.
“Sarah.”
“Yes”.
“Why can’t mistakes be beautiful too?”

The Catbird Seat

For Nikki (3)

For Nikki.
The first time I ever painted I was 4 years old. I used watercolor. I had a pretty damn good set Nik’s. Red, Blue, Green, Brown, I had it all. My Mom wanted me to paint our house. I wanted to paint a cat. I took the black and swirled it around on the cream colored paper; finessing gentle curves, little paws, and scattered whiskers. It was one fucking gorgeous cat. My little Mona Lisa. Mom wanted me to paint a house. I painted the cat. The first time I touched a brush after the coma I couldn’t feel it, couldn’t twist it right, couldn’t contort the fibers on the brush head couldn’t sweep long arcs or dot small specks, I couldn’t feel the serendipitous wood or the artisans etched name on the handle, it’s harder to feel when you don’t have nerve endings in your fingertips. So that first time after the coma I put down the brush and flung my hands into a whole fucking-pool of paint, drenched my whole arms in it, took the plunge, covered myself in Red, and Blue, and Green, and Brown, I looked like a sunset that fought a tree and came up on the losing end. Then I just started hitting the canvass. Smashing color on different corners, sweeping my hands in co centric circles, spiraling outwards to reach the edge of the taut white paper I guess I just wailed on that fucker, just smashed it. I remember coating it like seven or eight times, and in the end it didn’t look like anything but a tortured soul and some broken hands.
I have never equated painting to freedom Nik’s. Are you free if you sling your being onto a canvass to sell to some uptown hipster who just looks at it for a minute, hands in his pockets, swaying back and forth pretending to see the meaning behind the color, nervously twitching his thumbs hoping that the girls he wants to fuck with are looking at his countenance, a twisted intrigued face, so that they think he’s deep, so that they think he has some genes worth spreading, so that he can maybe stop coming to these fucking art gallery’s every Saturday night. Is it free if you have to serve coffee to that exact some fucker the very next morning after he somehow managed to fuck that girl who is now sitting right across from him, eating a strawberry Danish, laughing at his shit jokes while he keeps telling them hoping that she’ll just leave and forget all about him and his needle dick. Tell me Nik’s is it free if you eat off welfare, scrape the fucking peanut butter out of jars at work, then blow all your money on paint, hoping that maybe this art thing will catch on eventually. No Nik’s, painting isn’t freedom, it is a cage, and I am fucking trapped in it.
Have you seen any of my artwork Nik’s? I suppose not, I’m not particularly famous, yet. Most of the time I start by staring at the canvass for a while, visualizing the feeling I want to recreate. But once, I decided I wanted mountains. Big, fuck-off huge mountains. Cascades, Rockies, Himalayas, every range you can think off. So I dipped in the red, and made huge points, protruding into and above the paper, giant’s peaks. Then I dipped in black, and orange and kept layering the peaks, saturating the canvass with the majesty of the range. But as I kept painting, I started to look at my mountains and I saw a face. I saw the sad drawn out features of an old man, the sunken eyes, and drooping cheeks. The floppy wrinkles and elongated chin of a despondent old, old, man. I saw the tired, coal colored eyes of a miner who dug too deep and blew the tunnel. I saw the broken, displaced, sharp tinted eyebrows of a man who has felt too much pain in too little time. I saw my father, balding, bawling, dying slowly in my care. I looked up at the ceiling, and saw the sky, and saw the red windbreaker blowing softly in the frigid air. Clouds look colder in the winter Nikki, and tears freeze faster in my apartment when I close the shade. In a moment of lucidity I stared at the portrait, fell backwards and cried as my father did when he stared at me serenely slipping into my coma. Nikki I have never painted a landscape, I have only painted me.
Someday Nikki, maybe I will come out west. Travel the lakes in streams of America, put some trust in God and hope a train out there. If I’m lucky I might wake up on one of those ecclesiastical mornings. But Nikki, the tortured artist sells the paintings, and makes the money. The commercial ones have their own T.V. shows. You know me; I’m no good for T.V. Your dog sounds nice, Nikki. Sounds like my kind of dog, fucking up in the oddest ways. Nikki, I can’t breath the air here, how is it out there?

For Nikki (2)

For Nikki.

You know your life is going down the shitter when you can’t remember why you like doing the things you do. I mean, that’s when you know you are absolutely fucked, when you don’t remember why you like pissin outdoors, or watching the ballgame, that’s the crowning moment in the kingdom of “you're fucked” land. I hear psychologist call it a “mid-life crisis”. Shit, I had it when I was 20.
I remember it. I was standing, just waiting for the light rail to get in from uptown, watching the punk rock kids silently bob their heads to blink-182, or some other shit on their ipods ( the fucking posers wouldn’t know good punk if it slapped’em in the face, give them some Sex-Pistols, Ramones and the Clash, and those fucks will call them oldies) and it was hot and irate, and I was winded and sweaty from dodging traffic, and it just hit me like a ton-a-bricks, I hated this shit. I hated standing at that station every Goddamn day, I hated walking two and half-miles from it to work at some fuck-tard coffee shop, and I especially hated watching those punk-rock wannabe dip-shits, bobbing their heads to absolute petulance. I hated my friends, I hated listening to them, I hated watching them, I hated the way Susan did her hair, I hated the way Jamie played his bass lines, I hated Eric, I hated his cat (a little puff-ball, it always tripped over itself, and never landed on all four feet) I hated my shoes, I hated the bus, I hated just about everything, and finally I just stopped. I watched the light rail whiz by while I held my ticket stub, and then threw my backpack down beside me as I melted into a hard metallic bench.
You ever sit on a bench Nik’s. Like, really just sit on it. I don’t mean slouch on a bench, or lie on a bench, or sit cross-legged on a bench, or even casually sprawl on a bench, I mean sit, rigid, focused, and completely awake on a bench. Ah, shit Nik’s I know you haven’t. It’s a difficult concept to explain anyway, don’t worry your paste eating head over it. Anyway, that night I just sat. I sat and listened to street rats, and lovers, and drunk-frat boys, and tight-legged hipsters, and coffee shop perusers; I even listened to the fucking PA, make its stupid ticket announcements. And I stayed that whole night, just listening. And let me tell you some weird shit goes through your head when you’re sitting silent, listening to a city while your life falls apart. But, do you know what I was really thinking about that whole night Nik’s? Do you know what concept was burning the back of my retinas, and tattooing my brain? Color. Yeah, big fucking epiphany, right? Color. Let me explain.
When you're in a coma, they close your eyes every once in a while so you can sleep, and usually right before that, they shine a bright-as-fuck-light right in your eyes, probably to check for damage or some shit like that, but I always liked to think it was because they thought my eyes were pretty. I have some pretty fucking beautiful eyes. I’m serious, don’t you laugh Nik’s, lets not forget, you at paste. Seriously, next time I see you look at my eyes, they're two huge fucking orbs of smoky gray-green clairvoyance. Deep, I know. Whatever the reason, they shine this bright-as-fuck-light into your eyes, and it burns a bit, and then they close your eyelids down real tight to get’em all watery and shit, and do you know what you see when they close your eyes real tight? Color. You are lost in a deep fucking ocean of color. Your whole world becomes color, your toe is a color, your nose is a color, your Mom is a color, your favorite toy is a color, the last light that got left on at your house is a color, even the black and white reels of Young Frankenstein is a color, the nurses bra is a color, the black T.V. screen is a color, all of it, everything is a color. Do you know what the best part is Nik’s? It only lasts like half-a-second. For just the briefest of moments, your head fucking explodes, and then everything just fades to black, and it is the most heartbreaking thing you’ll ever see. Fuck, Nik’s paste or not, you gotta tell me that you’ve done that at least once. Anyway, every night-when I had my eyes closed for me, and the firework display began- the color I always saw first was purple. Big fucking coincidence right? Wrong again, paste-fuck. I remembered that pencil, that drawing, that class, that face you always made when I looked at you funny. And I remembered all of that again that night at the light-rail station, when I thought about the color-explosions and why I hated my life. And as I sat on that bench, covered in purple, I realized who I was -and what I needed to be. That was the moment I decided to become an artist.

For Nikki

For Nikki.
They used to write me bad poetry and sing me stupid songs, while we looked out at dusty red sunsets, over musty red train-cars, sitting on rusty red train-tracks. They sounded nice sometimes. Before the songs, we just stared. They stared at me, I stared at them, we stared at the hospital wall. They didn’t care, I didn’t care, so we just sat together, in one big cluster-fuck of not caring.
Do you remember your first day of school? No, that’s OK, probably not important, probably not worth remembering, you [probably] just ate paste in the back of the classroom anyway. I was a fucking genius though. I stacked those pretty pink blocks, so fucking high. The blocks were sized according to their number value: ten was real big; one was real small, fucking obvious, right? That’s Montessori for you. Pointing out obvious shit, and pretending it wasn’t. I mean you and I both knew ten was fucking bigger than one, we didn’t need no Goddamn pink blocks to tell us that. Shit, I was reading at a third grade level. You were {probably} off eating paste though, don’t worry about it, happens to the best of us.
In first grade I stole some books from the library, I know, I’m a rebel, right? I remember looking at the glossy covers, and the little numbers on the spine, and the bright fluorescent letters on the cover. So I just grabbed a book, and ran, ran through the stupid “sharing circle” ran through the front door, and out to recess. I was making my way across the Minnesota Wisconsin border when they finally caught me. I did hard time, five days, cleaning up the lunchroom instead of going out to recess. Fuckers. They must have known about the foursquare tournament going on that week.
Have you ever been cold? Like, really, absolutely, fucking-freezing. Yeah? Doubt it, you ate paste, remember? You don’t know what cold is. I sure do. In the 5th grade, my family went to Glacier Park, going back to nature’n’shit, and my dad, brilliant as he was, decided we should camp on a glacier. Yeah, a fucking glacier. That takes balls, and I was eleven, so fuck that, puberty was still three years off. Any way, dad is pitching the tent, and I’m off taking a piss, and I slip off a fucking rock, and tumble into a crevice. I’m fucked, right? Nah, you’re forgettin, I’m a genius, you ate paste, go fuck yourself, I’m gonna crawl out of this ice canyon. So for like, three, six, eighteen hours, I try to haul myself out of this huge, fuck-off ice hole, while wearing a windbreaker that’s two sizes too small [hand-me-downs, they’re a bitch]. By the time dad found me I was shivering my ass-off, laying down in a pile of snow trying to remember how the fuck I got down there in the first place. Three helicopter rides, and a short ambulance trip later; I’m lying face up in some sterilized, heated, pansy-ass hospital, counting ceiling tiles. Least, they could have done was turned on the T.V., I hadn’t watched pokemon for three days, and Ash was in the middle of fighting Sabrina, this creepy-ass chick who used psychic pokemon to fuck with pikachu. Who the fuck wants to miss that for a camping trip, I sure as hell didn’t. So there I was stuck in this hospital, staring at the ceiling, vaguely hearing the adults talk about amputations, and severe frostbite, and life-altering head traumas. All I wanted was for them to take the IV out of my fucking arm, and the tube out of my nose, so that I could sit up a little and maybe watch a little television. Is that so fucking hard? Long story short, I finally decide to tell them this little jewel of wisdom, and Lo and behold, I lose my ability to speak. I then tried to tell my caretakers about this life-altering change by waving my arms and etc, only to discover that I couldn’t move shit, and that several fingertips were missing. Well fuck-adoodle-doo, no pokemon for me.
You ever write some bad poetry? I mean real bad, like soppy bullshit love poems that you write to yourself after your first girlfriend breaks up with you? Ah, fuck it I know you do, you ate fucking paste as a kid. Point is, when you can’t move, and can’t talk, all the sudden people decide that what you could really use-instead of some T.V., or maybe a little peace and quiet-is a shitty poem, or-even worse- a shitty poem sung to a shitty little tune. You hear about four or five of those, and you start wanting them to pull the plug. There was this one lady though, I think she was a nun, who came kinda often, and used to read me love poems by some dead old guy: and man, oh man, that shit was so beautiful it could knock you off your ass, and make you think that love was nothing but flowers, and heartbreak. Fuck, maybe it is.
This other guy, think he was doctor, used to come in and just start talking. He would ramble on and on about who-fucked-who, why his wife was leaving him, baseball, the current arrangement of his golf clubs, the weather, my vital signs, and any other shit that popped into his head and God it was so Goddamn boring that I thought that if I willed it hard it enough I might just spontaneously combust and end it all. After a while though, I got pretty good at blocking out the boring conversations, and letting in the good ones. For whatever reason that nun, I think Alice was her name, decided that I still needed an education, despite the fact that I couldn’t talk or move. If I had been able to, I probably would have told her that I was a fucking genius that could stack blocks, read at a third grade level, and swipe books from the library, and maybe then she would have said: “fuck it, lets watch pokemon”, but no. I had to learn. So day in and day out she sat down and read shit to me, Poe, T.S. Eliot, Walt Whitman, and Orwell to name a few, and some of it was pretty good, but really I just wanted her to leave so that I could look at the specks on the wall in silence.
You ever been bored? I mean maybe it’s summer, and your sitting there, and it’s like sixty, seventy-thousand degrees outside, and your mom just stopped you from burning ants on the sidewalk, and now your stuck inside, and you can’t watch T.V. ‘cause mom just shot that one down too, and your just sitting, in your cotton polo, and elastic dress shorts; just covered in boredom, absolutely saturated in it, smothered in a delicious marinade of boredom, drenched by the torpid odor of it. Now imagine that, every day, for three years. Yeah, fuck Glacier Park, and the coma it gave me. So after like a year and a half of listening, I just said fuck it, and stopped. I didn’t hear shit, for a while, I thought that I wouldn’t be able to ever listen again. Like when you haven’t ridden your bike all winter, and you take it out, and your just not sure that you can ride it anymore, that was me, with listening. So I spent a lot of time thinking. Thinking about fingertips, and gloves, and grabbing baseballs, and wearing baseball gloves, and after another year and a half of that, I finally just snapped, and realized that I couldn’t take the boredom any more and that was the day I woke up.
If you ever wake up from a coma, do it at like four in the morning, when no one is there, that way your family doesn’t hug you, and people don’t give you flowers, or prayers. If you wake up at four in the morning chances are you can do what you want, maybe finally turn on the T.V., or scratch your balls or something. But me, I was stupid and woke up at like three in the afternoon on Easter Sunday, what the fuck was I thinking. Anyway, the whole family was there and they were crying, and I was crying, and we were all just crying in a cluster-fuck of required happiness, and God, it would’ve made for a beautiful hallmark card. Then we went home, and never talked about it again. And I remember thinking: Damn, it’s good thing I’m a genius, otherwise I would have been so bored in that coma. Moral of the story: don’t eat paste when you’re a kid. Oh yeah, I forgot, looks like you already fucked that one up.

-Cedric

Haiku's and Tonka's

*Bar Stool Love

All I can see here,
In the clouds of withered smoke,
Is your eyes, gray, green
Soft piano melodies float across
A room, divided, by love.

LIBBY
Swinging back and forth,
The wind ripples through your hair.
But, flowers are Stooopid
And die in the cold winter.
So, pick a better image. Libby.

Lonely Mountain
Wasted on a poem,
The mountain crumbles with shame.
Please, remember it.

Burial.
I saw your likeness,
it will bind us, forever.
I lead, you follow.

*Not actually a Tonka, but written in the same style.

Anaysis of Ode To Maize, By Pablo Neruda

Ode To L.A.

I listened to the sound
of gravel, shifting beneath
the wheels of the car,
and took:

One last gasp
of L.A. air,
One last look
at L.A. towers,
One last picture
of a L.A. landscape,
One last pause,
for L.A. traffic,
One last Hurrah,
For L.A. Dodgers
One last sip
of L.A. orange juice
One last search
for L.A. Movie stars, hotels, plazas, and board games.
One last romp,
through L.A. fields
One last feel, for L.A. grass, textured to a blade, greener than the desert, brighter than the trees, squarer than the spectacles on my Uncle’s face, Hotter than Hot sun, on Hot Women, on Hot Cars.
Somehow,
the grass,
grows greener
in L.A.

The car pulled out,
I pulled out,
my battered CD player.
I listened to:

Punk,
Rock
Music.

Motion
City
Soundtrack.


The seams on the baseball, were tighter,
in L.A.
The smell of suburbs, and dirt, were stronger
in L.A.
The volume of voices, were louder,
in L.A.
The theme parks, more expensive, and the food more delicious in L.A. The High Ways,
More Expansive<>
In L.A.
8 Lanes Of Traffic For 100,000 Cars In L.A.
The Cousins Were Cuter In L.A.
The Wiffle Ball was lighter,
In L.A.
My asthma.
Was gone,
In L.A.

I was sad to leave.
I was sad to kiss,
The windowpanes of a
Foreign house good-bye.
And, once again,
Settle into the nylon covered
Seats, of a Pontiac
Vibe.

I guess,
The Trip
Was Worth It.

Final reaction to On The Road

While reading this book, I was most struck by the youthfulness portrayed in the writing. Everything is fast, entire stretches of road can be described in a paragraph. The characters are bold, sharp, and move as fast as the road does. There is rarely a moments rest in the book, and I think that the "beat" generation, (as Kerouac coined it) was like this. No one was sure what it meant, or why it was important, but everyone understood that IT was important. In one conversation in the book, Dean and Sal discuss it in a car full of strangers. They share innate, seemingly unimportant conversation about cut mountains with their minds as children in cars. About running along side the metallic machines, chasing the wilderness outside. Yet somehow they both arrive at the same need of IT. I think that the memoir is really a pursuit for that imaginary feeling, that is impossible to describe, yet impossible to live without. In On the Road nothing is more important. That is why Kerouac can spend a page and a half describing how a saxophone player plays. How he swings with the flow of IT. They way he vigorously attacks progressions, confirming and denying his possession of IT. With such incredible invigorating writing Kerouac sparks a fire in the reader, making them want to search for IT. Such writing is rare, and powerful. Overall the book is an explanation really, of what a generation was, and what it means now.

On the Road, Journal Three

There are few instances, in On The Road, when the wild crazy events seem "out of the norm". Indeed most cases of all night parties, continuous 48 hour drives, and drug binges seem almost mundane. But, in the third segment of the book, it seems as though the partying life is finally catching up to the main characters. In fact one of the main participants, Carlo Marx, has opted out of the lifestyle, moving into upscale New York, settling down with a wife and kids. When Sal and Dean go there to meet him, they find a different man, who suddenly questions why they do things rather than, when, and what they do. Dean, sees life as one crazy trip, never ending, never standing still, for Dean if life is moving a hundred miles an hour, it's not moving at all. Sal on the other hand, runs through periods of deflation. Where he settles down for a while, only to be whisked away again by Dean, and whatever girl he happens to be in love with at the time. This time, Dean scoops up Sal, and they drive down to New Orleans to hang out with an friend, old Bull. Thing start to get crazy, through an unspecified amount of time, Sal and the gang work their way through several kinds of drugs. Including Benzedrine ( a type of stimulant) and heroine. It feels as though the mood of the memoir has started to shift. No longer is everything happy. Each trip isn't all glory and sunshine. The characters are growing odder, and more desperate at every turn, Bull takes three shots of heroine, administered throughout the day just to stay functional. The effects of such a crazy life style have started to show.

Stormy Class Room

Ms. Anastis had a spacious room. Wide, and gray, it was broken into three sections. One section was a gathering place. An amphitheater, were the children would sit, and Ms. Anastis would read. I always loved reading time. Soothing words, make for good nap times. The second section was the math section. Despite the section's colorful beads, and proportioned blocks, I hated it. The last section was defined by one feature, a gigantic glass window. The window pane was broken into distinct parts by iron supporting bands, criss-crossing the sleek surface, breaking the outside world into its own pieces. The window was a source of sunlight, happiness, and on one particular day, terror mixed with embarrassment. One day, the sky turned sour. Then the wind kicked up, and started flailing the trees. My fear of Tornadoes crept into my mind. The oppressive humidity made my skin sweat. The walls of the classroom started sneaking up on me, closing in slowly, delaying the breakdown. Storms, clouds, lightning, rain, I feared it all. A warm sensation spread down my legs, I knew I was in trouble. I stood there by the window, pants dripping, head hung, trying not to turn and look at the rest of the class. Suddenly, the storm wasn't important anymore, just changing my underwear.

Jack Kerouac On the Road Journal #2

While reading On The Road, there are a few thoughts that keep circling through my head. Mainly, I have a vision of Sal, walking down dusty roads, hoping for rides from strangers in the west. I think about the freedom he owns, the absolute ideal that he has imposed upon himself. In the writing, Sal does what he feels, and every option is a good one, every experience is important, and all of the trip is an adventure. Somehow, the pessimist in me is destroyed. For example, when Sal is stuck just outside of LA and is out of money, my only thought was wondering how he was going to get out of this one. The sense adventure is so present that the book reads more like a fantasy novel than a memoir. There is never a sense of pause, never a moment where the characters motives are questioned. There is only the road, and Sal. There is only a sense of anticipation as to what he will do next. Kerouac's real skill as a writer is shown in what Sal does. Kerouac is able to make the mundane an adventure. For instance, for a brief period of time, Sal is a security guard in a barracks complex for men about to be shipped off to WWII. As a whole the job sounds like a bore. Everyday Sal takes his rounds, checking in on the men and trying to stay awake. It would be easy for Kerouac to simply gloss over this passage in Sal's life, to state the obvious then move on, but he doesn't. Kerouac creates a story from the chapter. He enriches character, both Sal's and the people around him. It allows the reader to really understand why Sal absorbs things the way that he does. The reader is allowed to grasp not only the situation, not only the setting, but the character themselves.

Photographic Memory

Cool green grass pokes through white wet toes. My ears feel cold. A plastic circular pool rises out of the grass, and invites me to bask in its tepid waters. The garden hose lies at the bottom, a coiled snake; done injecting its frigid venom, it waits for fresh victims. An hour before, at my house, Mom made hot dogs, ketchup optional, with Mac & Cheese on the side. Crisp apple slices for dessert. Shady back yards are the best, the heat feels less oppressive there, and Popsicles always seem to stick a little less. My yard is full of sun. Libby's isn't. I'm glad we're at her house. Somehow, the puzzle piece jungle gym feels smaller today, but the green side is still my favorite. Spiders construct intricate webs in the corners; snagging flies, and scaring children. Dirt filters into the colored plastic slabs of the jungle gym. Stuck eternally, until someone disassembles the plastic castle .
The only thing better than the wading pool is sliding into it, and Libby has already accomplished that goal. I decide to make my entrance an event, and tip-toe-timidly to the edge of the slide.
"Don't splash me!" I warn.
Libby only responds with a giggle and a smile.
And, in mock indignation, tells me to "Huuurrrry uuupppp"
I begin my descent, and, with arms wide open, childhood greets me in green.

Glasses

Dad never quite fit on my bed. One of us always ended up laying down a little lopsided; but it never mattered much to me, because his chest made for an excellent pillow. I remember feeling the vibrations from his vocal chords as his spread out, and down into my ears. Sometimes, I didn't even pay attention to what he was reading, I just let the deep, low, reverberations work their way through my body, and out my feet. If I ever chanced a look up, I would see my Dad's reading glasses. Half cut, little crescent moons, that let him read to me. Once he put those "specs" on, I was transported to other worlds. Namely, the wonderful universe of Redwall, with mouse warriors, and villainous weasels. When Dad yawned he still read, elongating the words, letting them slowly push their way out of his mouth. Dad still wears those glasses, just a little bit more often each year, and their not just for reading any more. Gone are the tales of rodent adventure, replaced by "Literary Classics". But, Dad's deep voice, and spacious yawns still remain. And maybe someday I'll have my own reading glasses, to slowly put on, and see the world through.

Jack Kerouac, On the Road, Journal #1

I am so happy that I am reading this book right now. Kerouac writes with the sprawling energy of a restless youth, and most days that's exactly how I feel. The story focuses around a character named Sal, who (so far) has decided to hitch-hike his way to Denver. The best part about all this, is that every experience builds the character, and every change in character is accompanied by a change in writing. For instance on page 5 Sal meets an eccentric character named Dean, who quickly befriends another one of Sal's friends, Carlo Marx. The passage describe how Sal chases them down the street. "I shambled after as I've been doing all my life after people who interested me, because the only people for me are mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders..." (Kerouac 5) What really gets me about this passage is the way we see so many aspects of his life. He shambles, shambles, after them, he needs them, he has to surround himself with these people, as he has done all his life. The next part is even more descriptive,
these people are mad, mad to live, talk, and be saved. He describes both himself and the people of his generation. This is not just a memoir about a road trip, it's a memoir about a generation of people, about the group of people that Sal has encompassed himself in. The writing begins to reflect these people when Sal gets to Denver. Here, Kerouac describes a night of revelry and drunken happenings: " Three o'clock came. Dean rushed off for his hour of reverie with Camille. He was back on time. The other sister showed up. We all needed a car now, and we were making too much noise. Ray Rawlins called up a buddy with a car. He came. We all piled in; Carlo was trying to conduct his scheduled talk with Dean in the back seat, but there was too much confusion. "Let's all go to my apartment!" I shouted. We did; the moment the car stopped there I jumped out and stood on my head in the grass. All my keys fell out; I never found them." (Kerouac 44) The writing is frantic, the sentences are short. Chopped ideas, that in themselves reflect the night. For instance when the need a car, they call Ray's buddy, the next sentence: "He came." Instantaneously? Obviously that's impossible, but the characters don't feel that way. To them, Ray's buddy coming over was a tiny section of a crazy night. Then when they get to Sal's apartment the writing picks up again, he does a headstand in the grass, and his keys fall out and he never finds them again. But, in the course of the novel it comes off as a minor detail, a minute moment in Sal's life. The structure, and rhythm of the writing so perfectly exemplifies the characters, the story, and the mindset of a generation. I can't wait to read more.

Andrew's Cabin

I remember, yes, I remember, the wasp nest in the lawn. I remember, oh-yes, I remember, the smell of hot tar. I remember, uh-huh, I remember, the way your eyelids swelled shut, from the stingers, burning in a forest fire heat. I remember the red rubber boots you wore. I remember falling off the side of your roof, landing on a pad of honeycomb, and unleashing the hordes of little stingers. The way you waddle-ran, in boots too big, to try and escape the tiny furies. I remember the sound of the vacuum cleaner, sucking in, with a woosh, the little bastards that clung to my polar fleece. I remember playing star-fox, munching on chips, then going in the yard with new plastic army gear. You threw your knife on the roof, and I mine. We both knew we wanted them back, but only I braved the roof. Too small to climb right, and you yelling warnings, we never had a chance. I remember the way they swarmed, wasn't it scary? I remember exacting our revenge hours later, trapping a wasp in the freezer, waiting until it died. I remember the first time I went to your cabin, Andrew Kline.

The Nose Goes

It starts from the middle of my face, right between my eyes. It follows a straight path of freckles, like a car following the median on the road. Then, it swerves, slightly to the left, drifting gently into my upper lip. From the side it protrudes out gracefully, bending to the curves of space and time. But from underneath, it is a monster, staring with two hideous holes for eyes. My nose is covered in small sun spots; little gifts the sun gave me on a summer day when my mother forgot the sunscreen. Some days are more crooked then others. When I wake up early my nose always looks like it shifted. As though it tried to stay in bed while the rest of my face got up. I like my nose. It's never runny, and has a habit of rejecting bad odors. Often times I wonder about a world without noses. A "nose-free" world. Would we still smell? Or would we just have a giant space of flesh, a canvass, waiting to be painted upon.